1899- Journey to Mars

The sound of running footsteps came from below.

“Quit your crying,” the mort holding Dakota said. In answer Dakota allowed his knees to crumple and he fell from the mort’s grasp and began to shake as if he were going into convulsions.

“Criminy!” the other mort called. “What did you do to the little blighter?”

“I didn’t do anything. He’s playing possum. Whatever a possum is.”

There were other footsteps behind the first, and these moved more deliberately. Dakota looked through slitted eyes as he continued to shake, seeing the Golden Man and another man come up around the stone ramp. He snapped his eyes shut and continued to shake. For the most part, this was all play-acting, but there was another part of him that quaked with real fear. Soon he might be dead.

“Kill that one,” one of the other men said. Dakota opened his eye nearest the ground and watched as the Golden Man walked up behind the mort who had captured him and placed his metal hand on the mort’s back. A shaft of light speared through the clone’s chest and emerged from the other side. The mort crumpled and lay facing Dakota mere inches from his face.

“Pick him up and put him on his feet,” the commanding voice intoned.

Dakota felt himself being lifted and the hand that did it burned through his clothing. He could help it and cried out in pain.

“Stand still or burn,” the voice said. Dakota took this as his cue that his little act was over. He would not die lying on the ground. He would stand and die like a man. He opened his eyes and stood looking at the Golden Man and the father of all the corts.

“My father will kill you,” Dakota said.

“He’ll try,” the man said. “My name is Cort Whatley, but you may call me Dracula. And you must be the son of Billy the Kid.”

“The whole world knows my dad. He is the meanest, smartest, out-shootingest outlaw who ever lived, and he’s going to put a bullet through that ugly head of yours.”

“Thank you for answering the question,” Dracula said. He leaned forward and raised his arms with his palms down. His mouth dropped open and his fangs glinted white in the dim light of the well.

“That doesn’t scare me,” Dakota said. And then he heard from far off a staccato thrum and a low whistle. He began to breathe more easily. It would all be over soon, and quickly at that.

“Would my Golden Man putting a sunbeam through your head scare you, maybe?” Whatley asked.

The Golden Man raised his hand palm forward and stood with his arm outstretched.

“You know, all I have to do is say the word.”

“You don’t like it when people aren’t afraid of you, do you?” Dakota said. He was stalling for time, and they would figure it out any second. But there were mere seconds remaining for them anyway.

“What is that sound?” Dracula asked and turned.

In the next instant several things occurred at once. Dakota dropped to the floor and began to crawl away. Guthrie emerged like a blur from the level above, striking the Golden Man and hurling him into the wall in the same moment that a sword emerged from his hand and lopped Dracula’s head from his shoulders. The head tumbled towards Dakota, rolled to a stop and spoke four words: “I’m not dead yet!” Guthrie lifted the Golden Man and threw him down into the well below. There was a loud splash and a hiss of water. A gout of steam rose.

Guthrie helped Dakota to his feet. “Are you all right, Dakota?”

“I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.”

The steam from below began to rise faster and the level of heat in the well rose by degrees within seconds. The billowing steam became suffused with an amber luminescence.

“Too late,” Dakota said. “It’s here.”

The Golden Man floated out of the steam and hung suspended in the air.

Guthrie shoved Dakota to the ground behind him.

The Golden Man held up one of his palms and fired a beam of brilliant sunlight at Guthrie. Guthrie dodged and turned his dodge into a rolling descent down the spiral rampway of the well.

“Guthrie!” Dakota shouted, but both Guthrie and the Golden Man ignored him.

Dakota watched in horror as Guthrie stood and placed one foot against the wall behind him. The Golden Man seemed to wait for Guthrie’s next move.

From his vantage point farther down the spiral, Guthrie looked up at Dakota. The robot then did something Dakota had never before witnessed. He smiled.